Attempting.

Time to stir something up.
Risotto seemed like one of those dishes that would be pretty difficult to make. I must admit it is kind of intimidating, but really, it's just a labour intensive dish of love. That's right. I said it.
I was following this recipe here.

So I went and got the ingredients (organic chicken broth is expensive! but typically it has way less saturated fat and sodium content, so worth the extra dollars). I found mine at Sobeys, but I think Safeway sells it as well.
I use as little butter as possible and opt for extra virgin olive oil instead.
The first time I made risotto it was a little hard, I ran out of broth and wine and wasn't sure how long to cook it for. The critical thing about this dish is practice really. My room mate just throws it all together and it is amazing. He doesn't stir as much as I do either. What was I doing wrong?

Then I went to Jamie Oliver's recipes. Seriously, I'm in love with Jamie Oliver. He always points out the important things to do within a recipe.
His take on risotto is here
He points out that you can use boiling water if you run out of stock and wine. And the key to a nice risotto is letting a sit for a couple minutes after adding the Parmesan.

Remembering.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I came out last week.
I seemed to have missed the hype and hysteria that comes with the movies because I don't own a TV and therefore missed the media frenzy.
But I did find myself in one of those super luxurious movie seats in Cross Iron Mills Saturday to watch the second to last installment of the Harry Potter series.
It has been three years and a half since the book was released and since then, there hasn't been much talk about Harry Potter. I enjoyed the book and waited with baited breath for its release. I almost threw the 6th book out the window when I was finished it (What? you mean he died? and I have to wait a YEAR for the rest of it?).
Watching the movie was a bit anti-climatic. Not that I didn't enjoy the books but the story has been concluded and I'm over it. The movie is like an echo of a memory.

Grounded.

Went to see Ground Zero Theatre and Hit & Mith Productions presentation of Reasons to be Pretty at the Vertigo Theatre.

Neil Labute is in the air.

Labute is a playwright introduced to me last year. He devises the most wicked characters, awful, despicable people who create emotional genocide. Mostly it's the male characters in his plays who sink really low, but the females are definitely not exempt.

Full.

So preservatives are bad for you. But the thing is, when you're running around, trying to get everything done, sometimes preservatives are the things that make you not spend a fortune on eating out. I used to buy guacamole at the store. But my friend J. makes it herself. But she's like the goddess of cooking. I'm not kidding. She makes pies and granola and yogurt as if it's the easiest thing on the planet.

Now I wouldn't say that I don't know what I'm doing in the kitchen. I can make Mauritian meals. I can follow a recipe and get a feel for things. So, we'll start small. Then we'll go to the end goal of pumpkin pie. Once I can do that I officially am doing more then just getting by.

Involved.

R. And I went to see Rogue's presentation of Neil Labute's 'Some Girl's at the Pumphouse last night. I have to admit I was going in with low expectations. The last production I saw at the Pumphouse was sub-par, R. called it pretty awful. I was hoping that this production would be okay.
I was in for a treat. Rogue theater was diligent in picking their actors and making the play poignant and effective. Labute's play is not his most heart wrenching (for that check out In the Company of Men or The Shape of Things) but I must admit that there were time when I wanted to strangle the male character. Labute has an uncanny way of creating characters that are so despicable that you wind up feeling terrible after his plays, in this incredibly morbid way.
'Some Girls' is a play about a man about to get married, so he is flying to many places across America to find his old girlfriends.

Engaged.

It's always great when you get to go to those gatherings that are filled with people who are involved in community and are doing something they believe in. I went down to Forest Lawn to be a part of a gathering of people to bake pizzas in a cob oven.

I didn't know what a cob oven was either. So I asked around meekly, admitted to having no idea other than the oven part and gleemed straws of information.